


things have changed (for me)

by mrsilikemyself



Series: gta au [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: GTA AU, Gen, Recreational Drug Use, Some Graphic Violence, in its most literal not necessarily gay sense, mostly just guys being dudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-24 21:35:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10750272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsilikemyself/pseuds/mrsilikemyself
Summary: a chance meeting. with weed





	things have changed (for me)

**Author's Note:**

> a late bday gift for my boy Mikey!!! go tell them happy bday @heroinbobby on tumblr they r the dancing queen!!!!!
> 
> what I wanted: Michael getting arrested, banter, blood  
> what I got: Light Angst™ and drug talk
> 
> so anyway its abt friendship!!! BC I luv my bee sm gosh <3 thank u for everything ilysm
> 
> title from panic! at the disco's that green gentelman BC the years pass and I'm still emo
> 
> unbetaed, all mistakes r my own
> 
> if ure from rt or affiliated and want to use this bs for smth don't be a fucking asshole and ask first

Michael spits out blood and makes a face at it.

“Ugh,” he says. He hates motorcycle accidents.

“Put your hands up!” The voice of the police officer trembles. He’s young, not even some scruff on his face. Geoff would say they look alike, this LSPD loser and Michael, both soft like a baby’s butt or some other bullshit. Thankfully for him, Geoff is probably already on the other side of the city, secure at a safe house, and Michael can’t touch a hair of his pretty moustache.

“I said-” shooks the cop.

“I know what you fucking said,” says Michael, glaring and very slowly raising his hands. The cop’s eyes widen and Michael throws his to the sky. For fuck’s sake. “Now what?” he snaps.

“Oh, um.” It’s clear he didn’t think he would get this far. He cautiously approaches him, nearly forgetting to always point his gun at him twice and getting spooked when Michael huffs at how long he's taking, and then quickly handcuffs him.

“Fucking finally, god. I was thinking you would never arrest me,” says Michael.

The cop doubts but seems to decide to ignore him. He recites his rights to Michael in as much of a steady voice as he can manage and then turns his back to him to ask for backup on his radio. Michael can’t even believe it. His right shoulder hurts from the accident, though, and he’s fucking exhausted, so Michael very pointedly doesn’t kill him. He stays on his feet, his hands cuffed behind his back, and thinks of what the rest must be doing. Geoff has to be taking a shower by now, and complaining about his ruined suit like he wasn’t the one that shot the bank clerk, and Jack must be dividing what they got with Lindsay. He hopes he gets a good cut, maybe even a compensation for this bullshit.

Suddenly, the cop’s head explodes. His body slumps and falls, and his brains paint the alleyway's dirty brick walls. Michael doesn’t even have time to get on the defensive when he hears a clear “Headshot!” from above. On the roof of a near building, Ray is waving at him.

“You, asshole!” he laughs as Ray slings his rifle over his shoulders and starts going down the fire escape. “Where have you been?”

Ray jumps the last steps to the floor and turns to grin at Michael.

“Around.” he says with a shrug, putting on his hoodie to hide the weapon.

“Around.” repeats Michael, “What does that even mean? I haven’t heard from you in forever.”

Ray scratches his neck and shrugs again.

“Just around,” he says. Then, “Let me help you with those.”

Michael is trying to get out of the handcuffs but he’s never been very good at it, no matter how much Ryan tries and teach him. Ray, though. Ray was Ryan’s favourite. In less than five seconds he has them dangling in front of his face looking smug.

“Show off.” mutters Michael and Ray grins at him.

Michael rolls his eyes and zips up his jacket to hide the bloodstains on his shirt, and they start walking away from the crime scene. On the distance, there's approaching police sirens but they seem unfazed. They are in FAHC territory, after all.

“Will you tell me now where you’ve been?” asks Michael after a while of dragging his feet along the sidewalk.

Ray blinks and stays silent for a moment.

“On holiday,” he says in the end. “Went back to New York for a while, then Costa Rica.” He snorts, “Then Texas, for some reason. It wasn’t bad.”

“And now you're back?” says Michael tentatively.

“Have some jobs at least, I was finishing one when I saw you. Travelling is expensive.”

“And you missed it, come on don’t lie.”

Ray laughs.

“Sure.” he half smiles.

Michael doesn’t know how to continue and it’s uncomfortable. He takes out his phone and checks his messages. Gavin sent him a bunch of exclamation marks so he’s either worried about him or just bought something ridiculous. Jeremy and Lindsay have actually asked where he is so he fires them a quick message saying he’ll be back soon. He thinks he will, anyway.

Ray stops in his tracks, then, and turns towards him. He looks at Michael for a moment before dropping his eyes to his shoes, still checkered vans because he’s a lazy nerd. He breathes in deep and nods.

“We should catch up.” he says.

“Okay.” says Michael.

Ray takes the lead through the Los Santos' back alleys and it takes Michael ten minutes to figure out where they are going. When they get there he stops to take it in.

The old parking lot looks well, older. It was already abandoned when Michael and Ray started to use it to smoke up, hiding in a rusty car that he’s sure was the one that gave him tetanus that one time. It’s weird seeing it again, like a corpse buried years ago that has just been dug out, all mummified and shit. The fucking car isn’t even there anymore.

“You coming?” says Ray, already rolling a joint. “I’ve got the good kush.”

Michael comes.

Ray sits down on the floor by a ruinous half wall without a care in the world, somehow not getting stabbed by any bottles shards. Michael cleans up the space next to him with his boot as well as he can without taking his hands out from his pockets and then sits next to him. He takes out his lighter and hands it to Ray, then lazily observes as he finishes rolling and lights up. Ray closes his eyes for the first drag, just how Michael remembers, and lets his head fall against the wall.

“I haven’t smoked in forever.” he says.

“Really?” says Michael with an incredulous eyebrow.

“Yeah. I don’t know, haven’t felt like it lately.”

Michael grabs the joint and takes his drag.

“Me neither.” he says “But Gav and I did acid a while ago.”

“Mhm, I remember him saying he would never do that again.”

“It was kind of Mica’s fault. Kind of a long story, too.”

Ray lets the smoke go in mindless little circles, like he doesn’t really realise he’s doing it.

“You’re working with her, then?”

“Yeah? I don’t know, it’s a, uh.” He flaps his hand around. “A weird thing. Lindsay is pretty much in charge now, you know?”

“I’ve heard about it. How’s that going?”

Michael shrugs, tries to imitate Ray’s smoke rings and ends up coughing.

“Better than this bullshit.” he sneers when he can breathe again. “God, you waste your teen days doing this shit and then stop for a little while just to go back to day fucking zero when you start again.”

Ray hums.

“You kinda sounded like Geoff there.” he smiles.

“Fuck you, I'm not that whiny.”

Ray laughs and they share the joint in silence for a while.

“How’s, uh, how’s Tina?” asks Michael finally.

Ray blinks up at him.

“Good. We got a dog.”

“Yeah?” smiles Michael.

“Yeah. She’s soft and so fucking tiny but she shits on the wall sometimes.”

Michael laughs and it starts him coughing again, so hard he ends up with his head against his legs on a spasm.

“Don’t die on me, dude. We’re reconnecting.” Ray pats his back softly.

“Fuck you, and your weed. This is your fault.” he swallows. “You left.”

Ray pauses, takes back his hand.

“Are you ever gonna tell me fucking why?” says Michael, his head still hidden between his legs. He feels rattled, a total lightweight. He feels sixteen.

“There wasn’t really a reason.”

“I fucking guessed as much.” He breathes in deep and then looks up. “Pass me the fucking joint and show me pics of your dog, you asshole.”

Ray does as he's told because he's a lot of things but the dick in this relationship has always been Michael. His dog is a cute little thing, definitely soft, and Michael is very unamused with how much he wants to aw at it.

“Tina wanted her.” shrugs Ray. “And she’s devious. Fucking made me fall in love with her and everything.”

“The dog or Tina?” says Michael. “And don't lie, you saw it looked like that meme and started throwing dollar bills around like you were in a strip club.”

Ray snorts.

“A dog strip club.” he says and they both crack up.

“God, Gus would own one!”

“He would, fuck. I don’t wanna start coughing like a loser that hasn’t even seen pussy.”

“You were a virgin until you met me!”

“What an attack!” gasps Ray. “Is this because I’m brown? LSPD, I am being racially profiled by someone that isn't the government!

“Shut up.” Michael quicks him “Dick.”

Ray settles down again, still smiling, and Michael passes him the fag and his phone back.

“She's cute, I guess.” he says

“She is.”

Ray takes a drag and Michael looks as he does practically impossible things with the smoke. It’s deja vu as fuck, a heartless throwback to when they were fucking kids. But shit happens, right? He kinda remembers shit happening (Ryan, for one), and before he could realise that they had stopped being such good friends, Ray had already up and left.

“The others are okay since you didn't ask.” says Michael

“That’s because I don't care.” He shakes his head. “Nah, fuck it. I know Geoff keeps track of me because he's actually a fucking dad, and Jack keeps track of Geoff so he doesn’t get into bad shit and get you all killed.”

“Ryan had a thing with Gavin.”

Ray can’t help the giggles.

“No fucking way.”

“Yeah, and a model, too, some chick called Turney. She’s not bad.”

“Some chick,” mutters Ray darkly, waving his hand around encompassing all the world and a bit more. “As if she isn't fucking everywhere, in all those fucking big adds in the city." He pauses." Didn't you two like-”

“Whatever.” Michael interrupts. “She's not bad, and. Did you know Ryan’s name is actually fucking James?”

“Yeah, he told me.”

Michael groans.

“We, like, lost our shit over that for a month! You can't just know that!”

“If you actually talked to the scary Vagabond you would know, too,” says Ray and Michael rolls his eyes.

“I don't like that creepy fucker, not even when he fucking bakes. He's gonna poison us all one day with a blueberry tartlet, fucking mark my words.”

“Sure, whatever.” Ray dismisses him easily. “Okay, Gav has seen Ryan in the nude, there's a model, you're kind of working with Burton, Lindsay's in charge…”

“Jeremy is in the big leagues now.” He giggles. “Even though he's fucking short.”

“Wow, you're so funny Michael, have my babies,” says Ray in a monotone. “Dooley, right? He a lad?”

“Yep. Gav gets him to do all the shit he never convinced us to.”

“A drag in his honour! Does he know he’s already dead?”

“Amen.” giggles Michael again.

They are finishing the joint, getting to the can't hold it without burning your fingers part.

“This was okay.” says Michael giving the little stub back to Ray.

“Yeah, I guess.” he clears his throat. “We could do it again.”

“Yeah.” smiles Michael, getting up and helping Ray do the same.

“Cool,” says Ray. “You've got my number.”

Michael blinks.

“Did you fucking steal my phone to put it in while we were smoking?”

“What? No!” frowns Ray “I did it when we were walking here, you weren't high then.”

“Oh, like that changes things.”

“Whatever, dude, Brownman's out. Hit me up if you want, okay?”

Michael smiles.

“Sure,” he says. Then, “I'm glad you're back, I missed you.”

Ray softens, he smiles backs and nods. He leaves without a word.

**Author's Note:**

> if there's any questions abt the setting or the timeline don't be afraid to ask!! I've spent way too much time thinking abt it
> 
> find me @gaymersion for some good ol gay content


End file.
